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Happy Holidays! The Concept: Synergy office will be closed from Friday, December 22 until Jan. 2, 2018. Streaming and downloading services are fully available as well as the Pay-per-Views that can be purchased from the shopping cart. Physical products ordered after December 18 will be shipped when we reopen Jan. 2.

In our blog, you’ll find information about metaphysics and spirituality from Lazaris and Jach, excerpts from Lazaris recordings and interviews, and travelogues from Jach’s adventures around the world.Blog Index

A Grouping of Questions with Jach's Replies from the Online Conferences

Q. What are the differences between Union and Oneness? Seems like Oneness is more connected with divinity.

JACH: Certainly they are connected, and often the terms can be interchangeable in our language, but there are differences, I think.

First, union has to do with conscious creation ... creating alliances for mutual benefit. It has to do with creating a concordance or a connecting, or
linking, of the heart and also of the soul (I think). It has to do with bonding as well as with binding together. In all this, union implies separateness.
In the alliances of union there is still you and me ... there is also an us, but there is still you and me. In the alliances there are still parts
that are gathered, collected, and combined.

In oneness, there aren't parts. [s]

In the binding and bonding of union, there are separate components or agents -- separate voices -- that are brought together to function as one. But they
are not one. Union is the stuff of complexity.

Oneness, on the other hand, does not have separate parts. Oneness is not about alliance, and it does not require binding or bonding. In fact, I think binding
and bonding are not only superfluous to oneness, I don't think they are possible. In oneness, there is no separateness or individuality.

In a way, union is the stuff of complexity; oneness is the higher octave that emerges from that complexity. Union comes first and with complexity, in the
womb of complexity, union gives birth to oneness. Union precedes and oneness follows.

And yeah, I think Oneness has more to do with divinity. Out of creating divine union ... a divine mystery to be sure ... can come Oneness. It is interesting
that 1999 was the Year of Oneness, and then 2004 was the Year of Union. It is almost as if we needed a taste of Oneness to motivate us to pursue Union.
And then I think of what Lazaris said of 2004: Ours was to seek union to meet our needs and desires like everyone else within the consensus would,
but for us, this year was about seeking union with self as we pursued triumph. I think the triumph involved ultimately becomes the triumph of Oneness.

So for me, therein lies the difference.

Q. It feels like the "Activating the Magics" workshop effected change on so many levels ... one thing I have noticed is that my sense of "beingness" has changed; it is more profound and it does feel as if there is a sense of Oneness involved ... maybe it has brought a deeper sense of peace, though that is not quite what I am meaning to say. I find it hard to articulate the changes, but I wondered whether you would want to talk about some of the ways that activating the magics can change us and has changed you?

So many of the workshops this year [1999] have had a certain profundity about them that is hard to describe. There has been a deepening and a quickening.
And you know, I think it does have to do with Oneness. It's the year of Oneness, I know, but as I think about your question, it seems as though that
energy -- the energy of Oneness -- is mixed into the texture as well as the content of so much of the work of this year.

"Activating the Magics" was such an experience. What happened for me is this ... I opened up to a fuller range of possibility. When I listened to Lazaris
lay out the steps of finding our particular gateway to transcendent states and then discovering how to move through that gateway into a state of ...
of what? of being? of mind? Yes, I think that a transcendent state is a state of being and a state of mind. [g] But what was so powerful in it all
was that we could consciously go there. It did not have to be a peak experience that happened spontaneously or by something divine. It could be our
choice. We could go to our gate, enter our gate, and be taken into a transcendent state. In that state, we could work our magic. We could allow a healing
and we could allow it to happen in a transcendent way. We could do so much and we could be fully conscious and fully in charge.

Realizing that has deepened my sense of responsibility. It has altered the depth of my commitment. It has changed the way I look at my reality. I have
so much more gratitude now. I have a heightened sense of appreciation now. And out of it, how can I justify playing the role of martyr, for example?
How can I hold on to errant emotions for the fun of blame or the hopes of vindication? I mean, those things become so meaningless and such a waste
of time. I don't mean to sound glib about it, but it does come down to that. So my martyr comes up, sure. But I send it away as quickly. I don't spend
hours sending it away. It goes quickly. [g]

And then I think about metamorphosis. When I listened to the tape from Saturday morning where Lazaris talks about the potentials of metamorphosis and how
our lives are geared and calibrated to allow metamorphosis, I got really excited. Again, the level of responsibility really increases and it feels
so right to me.

These are some of the things that activating the magics has done for me. Oh yeah, my magic and its effectiveness has taken a giant's step forward. [vbg]
There is a new punch to my magic now. I think it's a confidence and a courage. A confidence in the magician that I am and a courage to work the magic
with a knowing and with a demand. [g]

The Oneness comes into it for me with the particular faces of Oneness ... Uniqueness and Harmony. For those not familiar, Lazaris says there are seven
faces of Oneness ... seven ways to enter the grace of Oneness:

Unity

Uniqueness

Excellence-Continuance

Difference

Individuality

Harmony

Accord

Of these seven, there is a link between the first and seventh, second and sixth, third and fifth, while the fourth stands alone.

So the face of Oneness that works best for me ... is the easiest or the most valuable face ... is uniqueness. When I can come to peace with my uniqueness,
I begin to move closer to Oneness. But that is not enough. My sense of uniqueness needs to be tempered with harmony. So that is the face of Oneness
that can most elegantly bring me into the grace of Oneness.

Someone else may have the face of harmony. And they need to temper their sense of harmony with uniqueness. Though in linear language, it is just switching
the words around, in the non-linear of experience it is so much more than that. For example, uniqueness tempered with harmony has a very different
meaning than a harmony tempered or altered by uniqueness. The same applies to whatever your face of Oneness is. There is a coloring or a shifting that
is necessary. Unity needs to be tempered with accord (connect to the heart) while accord needs to be shifted by unity. Excellence needs the harness
of individuality while individuality needs the guidance of excellence. Difference? Ha! Now that's ... you guessed it ... different. [vbg]

So to the point: Activating the magics has brought me closer to my uniqueness. It has opened me more to my sense of harmony. And as I bring them together
in the state of transcendence and with the potential of metamorphosis ... a profound change in the essence that changes the substance of a thing ...
I experience Oneness. And as Lazaris says, it can be magical, transcendent, and exhilarating.

Q. What is it about the energy of trust that makes it such an important part of the journey of Oneness?

JACH: Well, I think there is something about the energy of trust that makes it profoundly important in many aspects of our lives. The other day, I was
thinking about the role of trust in my life, and I realized that it plays so heavily in the arena of developing my valued self. It plays a critical
role in that work for each of us. To truly value ourselves, we need to be self-aware (know we have impact) and self-worthy (know that we are spiritual).
We need self-esteem (earned love) and self-love (given love to be received). As well there is self-confidence (knowing we can cope), self-respect (looking
again at our emotions), and finally self-realization (knowing we can consciously direct our impact).

In all this, trust -- self-trust -- is pivotal. I think that self-trust is the keystone that holds all the other components together. It is core to esteem
and to self-confidence, and it is core to love (earned and received).

And without trust, what value would there be in looking deeper into our emotions? I mean, what value could there be if we didn't or couldn't trust what
we saw?

Now to the idea of Oneness …

Lazaris talked in early February about the various parts of what makes up Oneness. One of those parts was Unity. Another is Uniqueness. And within unity
there are concepts of sameness or equality, while within uniqueness there are issues of entitlement and empowerment. Another issue involved with Oneness
is individuality, and along with that come concerns about expression or suppression. In the maze of ideas that comprise Oneness, if we cannot or do
not trust ourselves, how can we find our way? I don't think we can.[g]

Finally, to find the mystery and the diversity that is Oneness and to make our way through the paradox and dichotomy that is Oneness, we need the alliance
of ourselves. When we come to face the majesty and the magnificence of what Oneness -- our Oneness -- is all about, I think we need a very intimate
relationship and alliance with ourselves. Self-trust offers that.

Q. Would you share any thoughts you might have about the role our crystals may play in our work with Oneness?

JACH: Oh, yes. I am sure that the role is a mighty one. [vbg]

I have so many thoughts about crystals, ... I have plunged deeper and deeper into my work with them. I sit with certain crystals for hours, and the joy
only expands. Well, I don't sit for hours on end, but I will work with one crystal for hours over several days. [g] But the fascination and the depth
of intrigue is only growing. The crystals are shifting and changing and becoming more awake than ever. More and more of them seem to be finding their
way to Lazaris and to Lazaris workshops.

A little digression ... One new crystal dealer who is European and who spends a great deal of time in Brazil contacted us. He did not know us at all, but
had heard of us through a friend, etc. We had purchased one crystal from him a while back. Well, he contacted us as he was "lead to do so." Something
was "drawing him to us and he did not understand how or why." But he was following his instinct. He came from Brazil directly to Orlando to show us
his crystals. Though we were a new client, he wanted us to see them first. We have had many similar stories. It's as though the crystals are insisting
upon coming to be with Lazaris and to be at his workshops. The energy is amazing.

Well, back to your question ... I think crystals understand Oneness in a certain way. They, as consciousness, have a concept of time and space that is
very different than ours. They can communicate across space-time in an instant. Also, I think there is an element of "one consciousness" in all crystals
simultaneously. In that I mean, I think all crystals know what all other crystals know in an instant. There is an integrity here that is crystalline.
That quality of Oneness ... each crystal being capable of knowing what every other crystal knows in the moment ... is a component of Oneness that is
most intriguing and most frightening to us humans.

Now, when I say that each crystal has that level of integrity and that each knows what all others know, I do not mean that keeping one crystal is adequate.
Not at all. Each crystal, as well as a sophisticated integrity, also has destiny. I am coming to understand that more and more ... They have destiny.
They also have the concept of exalted giving within their consciousness. All of this ties together to mean that crystals can offer us a great deal
of guidance when it comes to Oneness. They have not achieved it. But they can offer a great deal of guidance.

And when we work together, crystals and we can find more of that elusive mystery that is oneness. Similarly, when we learn to work together with the Other
and Mystical Other, we will come closer to understanding and experiencing that Oneness.

An excerpt from the personal growth recording, "Inner Peace" by Lazaris:

Note: In Part I, Lazaris discussed the beauty and necessity
of achieving inner peace, and the "blockbuster" emotions -- anger, hurt, self-pity and fear -- which prevent our achieving it. In this part, he turns
to the "bugaboo" emotions, the ones we overlook or don't understand, and explores how to work with them and what to put in their place to create the
inner peace we want.

The Bugaboo Emotions

We want to move on now and look at those "bugaboo" emotions - the subtle, yet damaging and even destructive bugaboos that you deal with.

Anxiety

What is anxiety? Anxiety is a combination of any one of four things. First of all, anxiety is unidentified anger, hurt, self-pity, or fear. When you feel
any one of those blockbusters, but refuse to identify it as such, then it's anxiety.

The second thing that anxiety is, is expected error. You expect to make a mistake; you expect to do it wrong. It is also anticipated rejection or humiliation.
And finally it is misplaced trust.

Now, you know you should trust yourself. But that has been watered down to the point that when in doubt, and not knowing what to say, you say, "Oh, you
just need to trust yourself more. I'm sure that will fix everything." Basically, it's just a way of saying, "I don't have the foggiest idea of what's
going on. And since I never admit failure, I'm going to tell you to trust yourself." So it has become a throwaway term, a throwaway concept.

There are four conditions which must be met in order to be a potentially trusting situation. If you try to trust yourself when it's not a trust situation,
you're going to feel anxiety. To be a trust situation there must be a positive and a negative eventuality. Secondly, that positive and negative has
to be decided sometime in the future. The third condition, and the most critical, is that the potential harm from the negative that may result has
to be more harmful than the potential benefit will be beneficial. And the fourth condition is that you have to honestly expect the positive.

Worry

Similarly, worry is four distinctive things. One: It is anticipated anger. Guilt is anger that you feel you do not have a right to have. Depression is
anger that you think you're going to get in trouble for. Worry is anger that you anticipate.

The second quality of worry is the obligatory worry you have as a way to prove that you are not taking your life for granted. "I'm so worried that things
will go wrong. I'm so worried that things will screw up. It's my way of showing God/Goddess/All That Is that I care." You don't want to look cocky
or arrogant. You don't want to look like you're taking it for granted and like you expect to create your own reality. When you worry in this way, you
give a very conflicting message to your Unconscious Mind, which reads literally what you feel. Therefore, all of your programming and super-duper techniques
go spiralling down the tube. You program with the belief and attitude that it's going to work, and then you worry, which says, "I don't think it's
going to." And then you wonder what your reality is going to be like.

The third component of worry is a lack of deservability. "I don't deserve the reality I have. To compensate, I'll worry." The perspective here is that
God/Goddess/All That Is loves you. Your Higher Self loves you. Your Soul loves you. But you don't. The arrogance is that you know better: "They're
fools to love me. I know better. I'm not lovable. I refuse to love myself." You have a certain obligation to love yourself. You can't keep playing
the game that you don't in order to manipulate them into doing something for you. ...

Finally, worry is a fear of losing control in the unknown. ... So, worry is any one, or a combination, of those factors, and is distinctive from anxiety.

Confusion

Confusion isn't really an emotion. There are also four things that confusion is:

First of all, confusion is overmagnified emotion. It is emotion that is so large you can't identify it, like looking at a drop of water under a high-powered
microscope. "Oh, my God, what's that?" It can also be a whole number of emotions that you're feeling, and therefore you are truly overwhelmed by the
size and the magnitude.

Confusion also may be a denial of feeling. Those who don't want to feel or ever admit having a feeling will finally agree: "Okay, I'm confused."

Thirdly, confusion is the "innocent face" of victimhood and martyrhood. It's that innocent mask of: "I'm being hurtful? Surely you jest." It's the confusion
that comes in there when you've been caught.

Confusion is also a refusal to be real, and a steadfast stubbornness to be shallow, to cling to the past.

Doubt

Doubt is one of the most destructive of the bugaboo emotions. Doubt is a lack of trust as opposed to misplaced trust. When you should trust yourself but
can't, that's doubt. Where you attempt to trust yourself when you should not trust, that's anxiety. They're quite different feelings, and it's important
to know that distinction.

Secondly, doubt is supporting the negative ego. In a reality where you know you create it, where you have dominion, where you are the creator of all things
through your thought, to doubt yourself is to support the negative ego. Doubt is one of its greatest crowbars.

Thirdly, and perhaps most strangely, doubt is domination. Doubt produces the sense that "I must manipulate in order to create my reality. I must have power
to control other people. I must get God/Goddess/All That Is to take care of me through weakness, supporting my negative ego in its contentions, living
in a world that is scary. I must know all the contingencies before I dare step out into the world. I must take, and I must blame." Doubt supports every
one of the contingencies of domination, and none of the contingencies of dominion. There is no sense of creating reality as a power, an ability. Doubt
is the desire to dominate without really saying so.

Finally, doubt is an attempt not to be responsible. We stress that because there is no way you cannot be responsible. You lie
to yourself. "I avoided responsibility." Where? You postponed responsibility. You can't avoid responsibility.

So these are the four bugaboos. When you're not sure whether it's anxiety, confusion, or doubt that's going on with you, the first thing to do is to see
if you can delineate. Also, try to identify if it is a blockbuster rather than a bugaboo that's going on. If it is a major blockbuster, then move it
to that level and deal with it. If it's not, then look at the payoffs. We'll give you a running start on that one.

The Tonics

There are four critical payoffs that are going to be operative, plus you may add for spice a few of your own: One is going to be for the purposes of self-pity,
the part of you that wants to feel sorry for yourself and wants to use that as a manipulation. Another is clearly going to be the part that wants to
dominate, that wants to opt for domination rather than dominion. Thirdly, the part that wants to convince you that you don't deserve to be happy, that
you don't deserve the very best. Finally, the part of you that wants to prove that metaphysics doesn't work, that you don't really create your own
reality. You can use the truth I create my own reality to create a reality that looks ostensibly like you have nothing to do with it, that it is all
"happening to you."

If you look at these payoffs and see what you're really doing here, then you can release these bugaboos and replace them.

For anxiety, the key tonic is dominion. If you're feeling anxiety to the point where you're just so anxious you can't possibly sort out whether it is an
unidentified emotion or whether you're trusting at the wrong time, then the tonic is dominion. If you will feed yourself dominion, absorb it into your
system, that will stop anxiety. Then you can sort out what specifically is producing it, and you can handle it.

Worry also has an overall tonic, and it is gratitude. If you will start feeling grateful for what you have created and what you have been given, the worry
will stop like a rainstorm. It will stop and a clearing will occur for long enough for you to grab hold and to get back on top of yourself.

To the specific areas ...

Worry that is anticipated anger: Your anger is like a reservoir and what you're doing is oozing out anger. You don't want the flood gates of anger to open
up and destroy your reality, so you siphon it off through worry. The way to handle this particular activity is to bring the anger into the current
time. Express it through one of the means, and you're done.

If it is obligatory worry: The key here is that what you're really trying to do is show that you are grateful. Why not just feel grateful instead?

To the extent that your worrying is tied in to your lack of deservability, we suggest you opt for willingness. "Look, it doesn't matter whether I deserve
to have this or not. I'm WILLING to have it. I'm WILLING to create it." Allow yourself to move in that direction. Once you start generating from that
position, what happens is that you start feeling deserving. The other way is to ask and find out what you have done that is so unforgivable. That's
what your lack of deserving comes from. That will eradicate the lack of deservability, and thus eliminate the need for worry.

Finally, if your worry is connected to that sense of the unknown, surrender. Surrender to your own Higher Consciousness and to God/Goddess/All That Is.
"I don't know how to control the situation." Don't try. Surrender and trust, and there won't be worry.

Confusion: The overall tonic is gaining perspective. Back off to get a better view of it. There's no problem too big to run from. Although you face your
fears by going toward them, back away from them to gain perspective. If it is the magnification, take each emotion you feel and handle it separately.
If it's a matter of refusing to feel, then start feeling anything. Some people are so numb to any emotion. Those people who are so totally numb will
eventually do something to make themselves feel -- either being so hurtful to other people that they will finally feel what they are doing, or hurt
themselves through excruciating situations because "at least I'm feeling now."

If you are dealing with numbness as a mask for self-pity, switch it to the blockbuster it is and start dealing with it. To the extent that it is wanting
to remain shallow, confront that. This is where the mirror technique can work very clearly. Sit down in front of the mirror and look at the person
there. Spend about five minutes really studying that face as though you want to remember it for a lifetime. Then talk to that person about how shallow
and unreal, how totally connected to the past they are. Start feeling what that feels like. That will burst you through it. Maybe you won't be the
deepest, most feeling person on the planet, but you will begin. And there won't be any need to use confusion for the purpose of remaining shallow.

With doubt, develop trust. The tonic to doubt is self-confidence. As you are doubting yourself, develop that self-confidence and the doubt will be gone.

If the doubt is there to support the ego, then admit it. Face the truth. Bust that negative ego. See where it really wants to take you. See that it is
your enemy and that it is attempting to destroy you. Your negative ego is not your friend. We say that quite frequently.

To the extent that doubt is your desire to dominate, move toward dominion. Admit the truth, recognize it, acknowledge it, forgive yourself for holding
so desperately to domination, and change it.

To the extent that doubt is an attempt not to be responsible, perhaps just let yourself in on how you plan to do that. Lay out your strategy for never
being responsible. Then maybe you'll realize you can't. You're going to be responsible, so why not do it consciously? Why not do it powerfully? That
can reduce and eliminate doubt.

Work primarily with dominion and gratitude. Put yourself in perspective. Take yourself a little more lightly and feel that confidence within yourself.
These are the four major tonics to these particular bugaboos. It'll work.

It's not enough to release, however. You have to replace.

You can dig out all your anxiety, and all your worry or doubt, and all your confusion, but if you don't put anything in its place, then it's going to fill
back in with exactly what was there before.

So, what you do fill it in with? You fill it in with love, trust, expectancy, and enthusiasm.

Love

You hear these things a lot: "Your problem is you don't love yourself enough. Love yourself more." You read books: how to, how to, how to. There's always
a chapter on self-love. And you read it, and what it basically says is: "People don't love themselves enough. To be happy they should love themselves
more. So do that."

End of chapter. Next chapter. You look back for the pages that must have stuck together. No one really bothers to tell you how to feel self-love. They'll
tell you beautiful phrases ...

We are talking about loving yourself, but also about loving others. This is part of what you need to fill in to have that inner peace.

Basically, love is a function. It is something you learn how to do. At one time you did automatically do it. But you talked yourself out of it. To support
a negative ego, you convinced yourself that humanity was unloving. Now it's time for humanity as a whole to start realizing, "Hey, we can love." But
you need to know how. There are ways, things to do, functions.

Those functions specifically are: To give. To respond, to be responsible. To respect. To know. To have humility. Now humility doesn't mean groveling around
on your hands and knees. Humility is the sense that each moment is brand new, that just because things went that way before, they don't have to go
that way again. "I am open and willing to have each moment be brand new." The sixth element of love is courage, and the seventh is to care for someone
or something.

We say giving, but to what end? It's not giving just to give. It's giving in order to provide something. Here again, there are seven particular things
that can be provided:

Giving to produce security, pleasure, honesty, vulnerability and trust. Giving in order to produce caring and intimacy. Giving in order to reduce the fear
of loss. Giving with these specific purposes in mind is a loving act.

And if you are responsible toward yourself and another in order to give security, pleasure and so on -- if you respect that person so as to produce security,
pleasure, trust -- if you have that sense of humility to produce these qualities and care so as to produce these seven qualities, then that is how
to be loving. That is the first factor: In order to have that inner peace, you need to love yourself and others.

Trust

You need to trust. It's not just a hit-or-miss kind of thing. Trust is based upon the limited selves: your physicalness, your mentalness, your emotionalness,
and your psychicness. If you look at it that way, you don't have to rely upon a psychic flash that it's all going to work out. Look to all of the trust:
what your body, your intellect, your feelings and your intuition say. Put them all together, and out of that combination comes an exponential that
is the basis of trust. You can practice trusting yourself. What does your mind say? What does your body say? What does your psyche say? You can try
it on inconsequential situations. Practice on what's going to come in the mail today, on what a friend will be wearing for dinner. What happens here
is that your Higher Consciousness will become involved when you start working with it. You see, your Higher Consciousness sort of sits up there and
looks down at you: "How are they doing? Oh, they're doing all right. They're kind of standing still. They're staying out of trouble." The Higher Consciousness
will interfere to clear up that trust, but you've got to start using it.

Expectancy

Californians are going to have more trouble with this than other people because they have been so brainwashed in the hype of expectancy. "Expect
a miracle" is a wonderful concept. But when it's on every bumper sticker, it has no meaning any longer. It's become so much a part of the PR that you
haven't really thought about what it really means to expect something. Often what it means is a bravado, a bullying: "If I say it loud enough, somebody
will hear it and give it to me." Often it is used to calm people.

A lot of you have been taught not to expect: "Don't expect it to work out, because you might be disappointed." So, what you do is lower your expectations.
In truth, you either diminish your expectations by some childhood experience, or you are so hyped-up in it that it has lost its meaning.

Expectancy is a marvelously wonderful thing, and we suggest always expect the best. Then it is more likely to happen. If perchance it does not,
you are in a much stronger place to handle your disappointment.

Expectancy alone isn't going to produce it. But having high expectations is going to make it more likely to happen, and it prolongs your joy. Let yourself
feel that sense of honest expectation -- not the hype and not the denial -- but the sense of honest expectation.

Enthusiasm

With the love, trust and expectancy, you're on the way to enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is, first of all, a happiness, feeling happy, which is being harmonious
with the now. It is being harmonious with the way your reality is right now. That's a state of being. Enthusiasm involves that state of being, but
also involves a state of doing. There must be action associated with this happiness for it to become enthusiasm.

It combines a sense of happiness along with humility. Again, humility is that sense that each moment can be brand new.

The third component is hope. Hope is also very much confused: "Cross your fingers, take a deep breath, and hope to God it works out." Hope as some kind
of blind faith. We're not talking about that. What we mean by hope is that you look at your current reality, and in it you see the gems of the future.
You see the possibilities of what can be out of what you are right now. That's what hope really is.

You combine happiness, humility, and hope, and then act upon it. Do something with it. That's enthusiasm. That's what true enthusiasm is about. ...

As you will allow yourself to feel the love for yourself and others, trust yourself and those significant others, have high expectation and grand enthusiasm,
you will know inner peace. You will feel that sense of inner peace. It is a quiet solidness in the core that radiates out into great activity, great
involvement, great productivity. An interesting factor here is that these four components that are necessary to replace the bugaboos are the most powerful
motivators you have. As metaphysicians, they are the four most powerful tools you have. It is curious here that each of the four has -- by your ego
individually and by the collective unconscious societally -- been watered down. Allow yourself to see that, and understand that, and start developing
them for yourself.

We've talked about trust so many times as being an important key, an important tool. As spiritual beings, it is there as one of the most important tools
you've got to establish dominion.

Really love in a way that you can identify, and not just identify as a warm, toasty feeling. And as we talk together then, to share, to grow,
to laugh together, to be a friend with you, you can open up to being loved as well as loving.

When you open up and starting loving yourself enough, then you will open up and let us love you. Love is the most powerful tool, but you have to do it
and be it, and let it be done to you to have its full impact. It's not just a hug you squeeze hard with. It's really opening and letting these things
happen.

Let yourself explore your bugaboos. Work with them to open that door to inner peace. Once you've opened that door and feel the confidence of knowing that
you can continuously reduce these bugaboos to non-existence, filling the void and having that inner peace, you can be that spark that you want to be.
You can be that inspiration that you are.

An excerpt from the personal growth recording, "Inner Peace," by Lazaris:

Today we want to work with some of the "bugaboo" emotions that you have, bugaboo emotions that stand in the way of your having inner peace. We want to
work with anxiety, with worry, and with confusion and doubt.

Admittedly, these are not the only things that are standing in the way of inner peace. The blockbuster emotions you are familiar with already -- unexpressed
anger and hurt, self-pity and fear. We will be talking about those feelings as well, but much more briefly. We want to focus on these bugaboos because
most of you by now have means to handle those blockbusters of anger, hurt, self-pity, etc. It is the smaller emotions, these more subtle emotions,
that still stand in the way of your acquiring that sense of inner peace that you are seeking.

What is rather interesting about these emotions, and common to all of them, is that you all feel them from time to time, but you don't really know what
they are. You can talk about them, but can you really define what it is to be anxious about something? And how is that different from being in doubt,
confusion, or worry? You can look in a dictionary and find a string of words that you call a definition. But do you really know what those feelings
are?

These emotions usually get what we call the "universal metaphysical definition." Anxiety as defined by the universal metaphysical definition is: "Well,
you know, anxiety? Well, that's, you know, well, you know, it's when you feel anxious, you know?" The other terms, unfortunately, fall by the same
sort of definition.

Without an understanding of what these bugaboo emotions are, an understanding of their subtlety -- without being able to distinguish one from another --
it's very difficult to recognize what's going on with you. It makes it even more difficult to acknowledge what's happening with you, foolhardy even
to think of forgiving yourself, and totally impossible to permanently change. At best, you can handle this or that anxiety or worry or confusion or
doubt. Usually it's a temporal feeling: The situation over which you have been feeling this emotion goes by. The feeling disappears and you think,
"Aha, I've handled my anxiety," only to find it coming up again. There's no security there, no sense that "I am on top of anxiety so that should it
arise tomorrow, I have something I can do. I can stop that feeling, and get back to the feelings I want to have." Therefore, though a particular situation
that produces one of these bugaboos may come and go, you are constantly plagued with it.

Being so plagued, you end up striving for, reaching for, even grasping for that inner peace only to find it slipping through your fingers once again. You
would think perhaps you can get through life without having inner peace. There's no perhaps about it. Of course you can. You've done it hundred and
hundreds of times already. So it's not an issue of whether you can survive or not, for clearly you can. But it is an issue of the quality of that survival,
and the quality of your spiritual development whereby it becomes important to develop that inner peace.

The Benefits of Inner Peace

There are very obvious reasons to develop that peace. First of all, it is more fun to live your life free from these bugaboos, in a state of inner peace.
It is much easier to learn to have fun. The road is much smoother toward learning to consciously create your success if you can do so from a state
of inner peace. Further, the purposes for being physical in this lifetime -- your focuses, the things you came to do and wanted to learn -- can be
learned so much more effectively if they are experienced and explored in a state of inner peace. Finally, it feels very good.

There are also less obvious, but no less important reasons, to strive for and achieve inner peace. The first of these reasons is that your outer world
is a reflection, a symbolic reflection, of your inner reality. Is it any real surprise that at a time of opportunity with tremendous expansion, a time
when you are about to take off and really get that sense of soaring and being in motion -- that the terrorism of your own martyrhood should hijack
you? You see, that outer world is a symbolic expression of the inner reality. And as the inner reality acquires a sense of inner peace, so you do have
impact upon the outer peace.

Now, for one of you to establish inner peace may not bring about worldwide peace, but at least it is contributing. And those of you wanting so much to
make some sort of contribution, wanting to have some sort of impact upon your world, wanting to make some difference in the future, one of the most
valuable ways is through establishing inner peace. For as that world reflects upon you, so you reflect upon it. There's not much notoriety in it, but
we would suggest that there is a tremendous amount of impact that each of you individually and as a group can have on an outer world that sometimes
scares you so much.

A second reason to develop inner peace ... There is a song that has a marvelous line: "Love is like a flower, and you its only seed." That's a marvelous
concept to consider. We have talked of you as sparks and seeds of spirituality. Indeed, that which fuels that spark and germinates that seed is inner
peace. To be that spark that you so much want to be -- to be that seed of spirituality -- inner peace is a vital part of that quest.

Thirdly, it is an inspiration. Your material success can be a source of inspiration for others to be materially successful, but it is your feeling reality,
more than your material reality, that inspires spiritually. That is not to say that you should not have material success. Have all that you want, and
be as inspirational as you want for others to acquire similarly in that illusory physical plane. But being a spark, inspiring other people to the realization
of a spiritual awakening, comes through the reality that you feel. It is the real inspiration that comes from your inner peace that
can pique other people's curiosity enough to make them adventure into the realms of spirituality.

Fourthly, as you are approaching the end of the century, there are going to be a lot of people who are going to want to play upon your lack of inner peace,
play upon your fears and insecurities. Some will be without the metaphysical/spiritual community, and unfortunately, some will be within it. There
will be much more talk of doomsday, much more talk of devastation, to scare you. Therefore, it is important for you as an individual to establish a
resonance of inner peace so as to avoid the seduction of fear and to stand as a point to uplift the resonance that is going to be pulled down -- intentionally
by some, unfortunately. As you sense yourself as that beam of light, as that pillar, that spark, that seed, resonance will follow. You will either
hold, lift, or decline. Inner peace can be a very useful tool for what you want to accomplish.

It is not only important to handle the blockbusters and the bugaboo emotions that stand so arduously in the way, but also to replace it with something.
Replace what you have removed with four very important concepts: love, trust, expectancy and enthusiasm. To move in those directions, we first begin
with talking about the blockbusters ...

Handling the Blockbusters

Anger

We don't have to go about defining anger. You can pretty much tell when someone's angry or when you're angry, though you may deny it or try to suppress
it. But what to do about it?

It is very important that you release, or express and release, that anger. Clearly, if you do not, you stuff it inside in an arm or a leg and create arthritis,
or in an internal organ and create a cancer. You are going to stuff it somewhere within you and create a miserable reality in one capacity or another.
You really can't hide from it. But if you handle your anger properly, then you don't have to generate these other degenerative functions in your reality.

Now clearly, the expression of anger needs to be appropriate. Many can, in a way of malicious obedience, express anger in a totally inappropriate manner
to prove that they should never have done it in the first place: Going to work and telling the boss what you really think of the clothes he wears or
the way he treats his wife is not necessarily the most appropriate expression of anger. Verbal expression where another person is involved is the first
way, and it needs to be appropriate.

Secondly, you can talk to yourself in the mirror. As you sit down in front of a mirror, that person looking back at you is awfully patient. They stay right
there. They never go away or respond out of sorts. It's a very valuable way to vent a lot of emotion.

Then there's writing it out, and many of you can do that wonderfully in the journal keeping process. One of the most valuable ways to do it is The Hate
Letter, as we sometimes call it. It is a letter that you write to the person. You never mail it, of course. But you write it and express the anger
in as vehement a form as you possibly can, fluidly and quickly without paying attention to spelling, grammar or punctuation. Just get it out on that
piece of paper. Do not sign the letter, "Love, so-and-so." Sign it, however, and fold it up and hide it. Play through the symbology of the way you've
been hiding that feeling all along. The next day, pull it out and read it. Make it stronger: Cut out your editing and your diminishing. Make it strong.
Then tuck it away, once again hiding it. The next day pull it out. Your tendency is going to be to skim it. Read it word for word, delicately reading
it."Oh, this is getting boring." Exactly. As you are releasing it, it no longer has its charge. After you've read it this third time, then you safely
burn it page by page to release the energy.

Another way is meditating it out. Go into meditation and visualize the person or situation, expressing that anger in as volatile and powerful a way as
you can. Release it, and burn it out of your own system so that it doesn't lodge somewhere and create a deleterious reality.

The old angers from your childhood and adolescence have to be released also. One powerful method is to make your list of the top ten things that made you
angry in your life. Take each one of them, and write it out as though you were telling someone how it happened. Then go into a meditation going back
to that time. Refamiliarize yourself with that old environment. Where did you live? Where was your bedroom? What was the kitchen like? Then experience
the situation the way it happened, doing what you did then: stuffing your anger, biting your tongue, crying, running off, swearing to never come out
of your room again. Then, rather than stopping there, do an instant replay. This time, express what you wished you had. If you were so angry you could
have kicked somebody, then kick somebody in meditation. "I'm going to burn down the house!" Fine, burn it down in meditation. Will that do something
terrible? No, because your intention is to release the anger, not to produce it. Would that you were so confident of your positive programming as you
are of your negative programming! It's the intention. And the intention is not to cause negativity, but to release the negativity and hurt you have
carried all this time. Then write down a sentence or two as to how it felt. Then on another occasion (not the same day) do it a second time, and then
on another day, a third time. Over time you'll work your way through the top ten. All that remains to do is the current anger.

Hurt

Hurt is a little different, because hurt takes time to heal. Anger can be healed instantly: Someone makes you angry, you explode, you express it, they
responsibly receive your anger and handle it, and you're done. It's not there an hour later. But hurt is a wound, a cut, a tear in your self-esteem,
in your essence, and it takes time to heal.

Hurt is probably the worst thing you can do to somebody. If you make them angry, you can deal with that, depending on the degree and the intentionality.
But if you hurt somebody, then that's harder to deal with because it does take time. It's harder for them to heal it, and it's more responsibility
for you. It's the one emotion that has time. Therefore, the most devastating thing you can do to someone is to consciously hurt them. And to hurt them
physically is less detrimental than hurting them emotionally, psychically or spiritually. A physical hurt can mend. You have torn an illusion, made
a dark spot in a light. But an emotional hurt is real. A psychic hurt -- to lead them off their path -- is detrimental to their growth. You have slowed
someone down. To spiritually hurt somebody, to spiritually misguide them, is the biggest hurt of all. It's the most devastating emotion you have. Likewise,
once you move outside of time, hurt doesn't exist. It's the worst thing than can happen in your physical life because of the time factor, but once
you move outside of time then hurt diminishes. So it all balances.

How do you deal with it? As with anger, you start with the old hurts: your top 10 hurts. You write them out. And you do much the same thing you did with
anger: Play it through. Have an instant replay. Handle it the way you wish you could have. Then write a sentence or two about it. It is important to
write it, because it is the movement of musculature and the electromagnetic energy of the nerves in the process of actually writing it down that makes
it solid.

What about current hurts? Well, current hurts you handle a little differently. With the expression of hurt, it is important to let yourself feel it. Therefore,
if you are hurting, then it is important to give yourself some time. Set up some time: 20 minutes on whatever evening. Plan it ahead of time. The trick
here is that you don't think about other things: If you're feeling the hurt, feel the hurt, nothing else. As you focus in on it, it's going to get
tedious for you. You'll find it very difficult to feel just hurt for 20 minutes solid. But experience that hurt for the 20 minutes, and then stop.
Then go on and do whatever it is you planned to do that's going to be fun, that's going to cheer you up.

It may take two or three times, but do it in the same fashion, and you will release the hurt. It will be healed and you will be done. "But they have to
heal it!" Don't count on it. They may not even know they did it, and furthermore, they really can't heal it. They can be responsible for it, and handle
it responsibly, and make a commitment never to do it again. And that can feel wonderful, and is indeed an important part of it all. But you have to
heal your own hurt. If you don't, it will turn to scar tissue just like any wound that isn't properly handled. It can get infected, and it can do damage
to you.

Another thing about anger and hurt -- as they fit together - is to realize that in your society you have permission to feel one or the other. Women can
feel hurt, but they're not allowed to be angry. So, if a woman gets angry and kicks a trash can across the room, she's "being a real bitch." The way
a woman can express hurt is in tears. A woman can cry if she's happy, cry if she's sad, cry if she's angry, cry if she's hurt. A woman can basically
cry. Any other expression: not allowed. So many women have a problem in terms of having worked with hurt, because that's all you've been allowed to
work with. You may have a tremendous anger in there that you have hitherto let stay buried.

In reverse, men are allowed to be angry, but they're not allowed to be hurt. It's "weak" to be hurt. It is very uncomfortable both for men and women to
see a man say, "I'm really hurting," or "You hurt me." So a lot of men have called hurt anger and tried to release anger and wondered why it's not
working. You need to go back and deal with your hurt, even though society says it's "weak" for a man to be hurt.

Self-Pity

We've talked of victimhood, we've talked of martyrhood, we've talked of self-pity au naturel, and there are numerous ways to handle it. But it all boils
down to one concept: When you find yourself feeling self-pity, honestly ask yourself, "Who am I punishing?" And when you say, "Myself," don't accept
that answer. That is true, but that only feeds your self-pity. "Who am I punishing?" Myself. Okay. And who else?

There's always someone out there whom you are punishing. Own that, when you find yourself wailing or sighing in your various forms of self-pity. Ask yourself,"Who
and why? And do I really want to do that? I'm hurting somebody. I'm wounding them. I'm ripping their self-esteem." You may tell yourself that nobody
knows you're in that place. Highly unlikely. Very seldom do victims and martyrs keep their victimhood and martyrhood private.

There's always the thing where you say, "No, no. I'm a victim and a martyr, and I'm only hurting myself." Yet when you're asked who has ever hurt you,
you can list out this one and that one. What state of mind where they in? Victim and martyr. Well, if victims and martyrs only end up hurting themselves,
how did they end up hurting you? Victims hurt other people. Martyrs hurt other people. If you will really face yourself in the mirror, and really own
it, you will not be able to really justify continuing it. And that is the core of the various techniques we have talked of as to how to handle your
self-pity.

Fear

Fear is the base emotion absolutely. The base fear is fear of loss. From the very moment that you separated from your beingness, from God/Goddess/All That
Is, there was that fear: "What if I can't get back?" The very core fear, expressed biblically and mythologically in other forms, is the fear: "Can
I return to paradise?" That basic fear then produces all kinds of fears, which produce all kinds of emotions. A lot of your anger, hurt and self-pity
comes out of fear. But it is its own emotion as well, and there are ways to handle it. It is, perhaps, the blockbuster of blockbusters. And one of
the most powerful ways to handle your fear is to face it ...

Now indeed, you can back up from a fear to get perspective on it. We're not saying you have to jump right in to every one of them. But if you've identified
and have a fear of something, move toward it, metaphysically, meditatively. You don't have to literally go fly in a plane and see if you crash. You
can play it through in your mind, and it's just as real to your nervous system and to your body.

There are two approaches: If there's something you're afraid of, play it through meditatively. That can release those kinds of "phobic" fears. More of
the fears are emotional fears, however, and those you work with by facing them. Go into a meditation and face it. Experience the worst thing that can
possibly happen. "I'm afraid I'll lose my job." Fine. Go into a meditation and lose your job. Get fired in the worst possibly way. Play it through
and then make an alternative plan. "What will I do? I'll sell the house, the RV, go on vacation, and figure it out when I get back." Plan out your
approach. Then play it through the way you want it to be. It sounds so simple, and it works.

With Love & Peace

Lazaris

In Part II Lazaris continues with the "Bugaboo Emotions" -- anxiety, confusion,
worry and doubt -- and the tonics which are antidotes for them. Once they are released there is space which must be filled to prevent their returning,
and Lazaris explores what we need to put in their place to permanently achieve inner peace.

"The key to getting there, to shifting the paradigm so the world destined to be new, can be new: Chaos, Paradox, Complexity, and Enchantment." -Lazaris

Here's what I have been thinking about in the midst of the current almost overwhelming points of chaos, crises, atrocities of violence, and human tragedies:
Polarization, now too common in the politics in the United States, seems to have spread to become a global issue.

Polarization: Republican-Democrat; Sunni-Shiite; Palestinian-Israeli; Syrian-Rebel; Iranian-Insurgent; Russian-Ukrainian ... are there more? Probably.
I have been looking at this for awhile trying to understand what's going on. What's happening with all this polarization and why is it happening now?

Along with this, I notice that Lazaris has been talking a great deal about the between — the energy of the between, the power of the between, entering
the "between" of worlds. Years ago he touched on the Liminal, which is the between of things, but of late his message has been much more present and
it's about the between, in the workshop in the Lake District (Gathering Treasures from the "Between" of the Worlds), in the Tuscany workshop which
also focused upon the between, and the latest message from Lazaris describes a meditation to slip into the between of worlds to work our magic.

Rather than only looking at the opposing positions, I have begun looking between the various polarizations. This is what has come to me: It seems to me
that the world is shouting at us, and our Higher Selves and Souls are shouting. I don't know if God/Goddess/All That Is ever really shouts, but if
Goddess does, Goddess is shouting at us, too. There seems to be a persistent message. I hear it almost like the beating of drums: Work with the between;
go into the between; work in the between.

Oh, another call to the between: The two hurricanes approaching Hawaii ... two hurricanes and there is Hawaii between. Beating drums. A rhythmic percussion.
The message feels very clear to me: The power is in the between. Our power to work our magic, our power to change reality in accordance and compliance
with our will, lies in the between. For me, a true OMG moment!

Lazaris has talked of the emerging new world, a world now destined to be. As he has talked of it, he has also talked of the role of chaos, essential to
change, and of the emergence of a new paradigm. He's pointed out that a new world and a shifting paradigm move and work together from creation to manifestation.

I understand that we are in the midst of a world becoming new. We are also in the midst of a paradigm becoming new, aren't we? I don't think of that too
often, but it's there.

For me, here's the kicker. During a One-Day Workshop in 2012, Lazaris said of all this: "The key to getting there, to shifting the paradigm so the world
destined to be new, can be new: Chaos, Paradox, Complexity, and Enchantment."

What's going on in the world? What is happening in so many places and what's the why of it all? It seems to me that we are in the midst of the chaos and
paradox phase. The polarization magnifies the opposites and the contradictions. The polarization freezes us when we are attached to or lost in only
one side of the contradiction or when we focus on only one or the other position of the polarity. I have come to realize that I cannot settle for the
either/or of paradox and contradiction. I need to find the between - the Between!

I am focusing my magic on "the people in the between" of these various polarized expressions of paradox. I am focusing on the middle class in the United
States, and the people living in the Ukraine, in the Gaza Strip, and the people in Syria and Iraq. I am focusing on the people being ripped apart by
competing ideologies and their ideologues. It is there that I work my magic.

What else did Lazaris say?

"The Power of Paradox is to allow the opposites to complement each other rather than contradict each other."

This is difficult for me, and I don't have the answers that satisfy me yet, but that's not stopping me. How do the polarized Republicans and Democrats
complement each other? I am not sure, but it seems to me they share passion, a vision of empowerment, a vision of freedom. The forms are in opposition,
but what of the function?

How do the Sunni and Shiite complement each other? I don't know enough to be precise, but it seems to me each is seeking dignity and freedom.

And of the others? It seems to me that each of these polarized groups, each of these contradictory and paradoxical positions have something universal in
common: each is seeking to change reality in accordance and compliance with their will.

What's in the between of each of these paradoxes and contradictions? Magic!

Lazaris also said:

"Complexity is the integration of autonomous parts. Complexity is separate and indivisible ... Chaos is a complexity, a complexity is a paradox. There is power in Paradox. There is power in Complexity."

There is power in complexity. And with complexity we can lift to a higher octave. We can lift and our world can lift to a higher octave. The world, to
become new, lifts to a higher octave.

I continue to ponder and savor. I continue to think and feel. While I do that, I am working my magic in the between of worlds — in the between of
my personal world and in the between of the chaos, paradox, and complexity in the world. I am looking for the complementary elements of the chaoses,
paradoxes, and complexities that seem almost overwhelming at this point. I am looking for the enchantment.

For example, I go into meditation and I face the contradiction. I face the proponents of each side of a polarized position. Without judgement I face them
and work to understand each position. I work to comprehend, interpret, discern, and assess each side. I then work with inference and with appreciating
and valuing each side. I work to hold, not the either/or, but the both. And then I move my consciousness in between — into the between of the
paradox that the polarization represented. In the between, I draw in the energy that is common to both sides. I draw in the desire to change reality
in accordance ... I draw in the magic that each side is seeking. I let go of the form and focus on the function: magic. I draw in their determination,
resolve, passion, and whatever else is common to each. I then turn to the people who are caught in the between, and I draw upon their desires. With
all that energy, there is a unique resonance. In that resonance I work my magic. I do my techniques to dream and vision it in accordance and in compliance
with my will, my imagination, and in accordance and compliance with my love. Then I flow the energy — the energy with a new resonance, a resonance
touched and changed by my magic — I flow that energy into the people, into the people caught in the between.

This is what I have been thinking about and doing of late. I want to share it with you.

One of Lazaris' suggestions for April [2014] is to work with understanding, and toward this end, I have been pondering the ideas of greater understanding.
I have been working with the components to have understanding and to reach into the realm of being an understanding person. I mean, I feel that I am
an understanding person in many ways, but I also feel that it is an ongoing process. Are we ever finished with expanding our capacity or our depth
of understanding? I don't think so. So I have been pondering and musing about the process.

The process for having greater understanding and for being a more understanding person is the same. "The steps of getting there are the qualities of being
there." (Lazaris). It begins with owning our resistance and moving beyond those apprehensions and impedances. Much of this involves being conscious
of our fears: fears of change, commitment and vulnerability, and fears of the discomfort of looking ignorant because we lack understanding. Our impedance
may involve genuine lacking: lacking awareness of and technique for understanding. Sure, using understanding or the lack of it as a manipulative tool
creates resistance as does focusing more on being understood than upon being understanding. Owning and moving beyond our resistance is where it begins,
and this first step is a familiar one at this point. It's easy with consciousness and choice.

Forgiveness is the second component. To have greater understanding we need to forgive ourselves and others, and we need to use forgiveness to lift our
emotional resonance from wherever it is to the expansive level. We need to rise at least to a level of satisfaction and well-being. When we do, we
reach beyond understanding into the realm of greater understanding. It seems to me that we can understand things, even ourselves and others, in the
depths of fear and anger and even in states of pity or worry and doubt. But to have greater understanding, a keener depth of understanding, I feel
that we need to at least have a sense of well-being. That resonance is critical, I think.

The third step of any process is the one that can bind us, imprison us, or at least slow us down. In this process that third component is awakening compassion.
To be more understanding, to have greater understanding, feeling compassion seems obvious. Perhaps it is, but it's no less important just because it's
obvious. We can feel caring; we can even feel compassion: however, the component is to awaken it. Hum ... it seems to me that this involves being present
and in the moment with our compassion. It seems to me we can't rest upon our previous experiences or expressions of compassion. Instead, I think we
need to awaken it in the moment. If we can't do that, I don't think we can take our current level of understanding to a deeper more profound level
even if we move beyond our resistance and open to forgiveness. It's not just about having or feeling compassion, it's about awakening it. I am not
sure I have seen the difference before now.

The fourth component is an elegant step from awaking compassion to stepping into the Magic of Compassion. It sounds abstract, but instead I think it's
mystical: that is, I don't think we can define that magic with words, and I don't think we can get there on our own or in some logical fashion. Lazaris
suggests we let our soul guide us. So I think once that we awaken our compassion anew, then we reach out and embrace our souls and allow our souls
to lead us into the resonance (beyond form and beyond function) of compassion. That's where the magic is. Oh my, yes. The Magic of Compassion cannot
be found within logic and reason. We have to be willing to step into and reach beyond each. We need to move from our realm of certainty into the realm
of uncertainty. Thus the fifth component unfolds.

The fifth component of any process is the liberator and in this case it is called awakening uncertainty but it means to awaken knowing without certainty.
This step can liberate the entire process. It is awakening uncertainty that can set us free to have greater understanding and to be an understanding
person. Lazaris talks about knowing with certainty. It's important. It's valuable. It's powerful. We need to know all sorts of things with certainty.
And beyond such knowing there is another kind of knowing: knowing without certainty.

For a long time it was difficult for me to wrap my arms around this one. It all fell into place for me (at least for now) when I realized that knowing
without certainty and being uncertain are two very different things. Knowing without certainty is not being unsure or uncertain. Knowing without uncertainty
is rock solid. Ironically, it is more solid and more powerful than knowing with certainty. Knowing with certainty relies upon logic and reason. It
relies upon facts and memory. Knowing without certainty reaches beyond logic and reason, and it reaches beyond memory.

I think an example of loving works well. When I love someone, I have my reasons. There is logic and reason, and I am certain that I love them. I love people
with whom I have varying degrees of intimacy. I love all peoples, humanity, humankind. Of these things I am certain and my knowing and understanding
have certainty. However, there are others in my life whom I love, and I know a depth of love that is not uncertain -- no, not uncertain, but without
certainty. With Enrique, I love with certainty, and I also love without certainty. Further, I am certain that he loves me, and I also understand and
know without certainty that he loves me. The certain knowing is powerful, and the knowing without certainty is powerful. The latter is also unshakable.
It is timeless. It is eternal. Therefore, knowing without certainty is more powerful than knowing with certainty. The key is to realize that "without
certainty" is not the same as "uncertain." At least that was the key for me. When I can awaken uncertainty (awaken knowing without certainty), I am
free to understand at a greater depth. Yes.

Listening is the sixth component. It's mystical listening. It's listening with other than your ears. Listening in this way seems to open us to a richer
sense of comprehension, interpretation, discernment, and assessment. It seems to clear the way for inference, appreciation, and valuation (the final,
often-forgotten components of basic understanding). When you are willing to know, when you are open to knowing without certainty, such listening comes
more naturally. It comes with grace.

The final component: Own the Mantle of Understanding. This involves being still and being conscious of the weight -- of the responsibility -- of understanding.
I think this involves honoring the majesty of understanding. It takes a moment, but that moment can, as Lazaris suggests, be forever.

So I work with this during April. The process begins and ends with ownership: owning resistance and owning the mantle. It opens to forgiving and listening.
It requires awakening: compassion and uncertainty. It calls upon magic.

Personally, I focus on the third and fifth steps of compassion and knowing without certainty. In these troubled times -- and during this particular time,
where it is valuable for us to "be cautious" -- working with compassion and with my knowing with and without certainty feels germane.

Anyway, this is what I've been thinking about. What do you think? I invite you to join me in "my corner" on the Forum to discuss this further if you would
like. [s]

(Editor's note: Lazaris refers to the decade from 1990 through 1999 as the most monumental decade in the history of humankind on Earth.)

So often we have said that this decade -- the one that you are midway through even as we speak -- is the most important, the most monumental, decade in
the history of humankind upon your earth. Even as monumentally important as other decades have been, this one is absolutely the most important, because
it is in this decade that you, individually and then collectively, will decide the future of your Planet Earth. You will decide whether there will
be a future or not. Though you will not implement that decision in this decade, this is the decade in which the decision, the choice, will be made.

Please hear that. You will not implement the decision in this decade. Despite what so many are telling you -- despite what many will tell you as the remaining
years of this decade unfold -- you will not implement your decision in this decade. Neither nightmare nor dream is going to manifest within the next
five years. Though both will be more available and reflections of each will be more visible, neither will manifest yet. As we have often said, even
though many will choose no future, as reflected in a three-dimensional world as nightmare or mediocrity, most will choose a powerful and positive future
-- a potent future as reflected in your dimensional world as The Dream. You will choose The Dream.

It is important to remember -- amid all the fearful rhetoric of doom and gloom, which too many are too quick to spout -- that the problem is not that there
is no future: The problem is that there is a future, and you are responsible for creating it. You are responsible for making it a positive future of
dreams filled with plenty of magic and miracles. It is up to you, individually and then collectively.

One voice, whether heroic, lyrical, or sacred, does matter. Though one voice may not be able to create it all for everyone, one voice can begin as other
voices join in and rise to the occasion. Then many voices can complete what one voice began. But it has to begin, and it does begin, with you. Nothing
changes until you do. We know it sounds like a cliche? or a platitude. Yet, in this decade, it is truer than it has ever been.

So many are ready to give up on your planet. So many are willing to fully entertain -- even to eagerly anticipate -- the end and a miserable and agonizing
death: the death of humankind. The death of Earth. Don't give up.

Do not give up. There is a positive future of dreams. More, it can be yours. However, you have to choose it. It will not be delivered to you because you
are a good little metaphysician or such a pure spiritual being. Your Higher Self, your Soul and Spirit, even God/Goddess/All That Is (or whatever you
call the Divine) will not live your life for you, and they will not make your decision for you. They can help you -- they can intervene in the process
-- but they will not do your life for you. You have to make the choice. Then they will be right there for you, filled with all kinds of love and all
kinds of healing. You have to ask. You have to ask.

Do not give up. Make a decision and a choice. Make it consciously, or as consciously as you can. And then ask. Ask for more love and for more healing so
that you might implement and manifest your decision and choice with greater ease, elegance, and excellence.

Beyond making the most important choice humankind will ever make, there are other issues that both make this decade so vital and that contain the seeds
of lessons to learn.

We offer two examples. First, the control of the past has ended its grip -- its sometimes tyrannical, sometimes suffocating grip -- upon you and upon your
reality. All the while the influence (not the control, but the influence) of the future is ever-increasing. Though the past still exists (we are not
talking of memory loss here), its control upon you has been loosening for years. Now it has let go. The future, which has always been ultimately at
the core of causation, has always been more influential than most would willingly admit or would dare think. Its influence is becoming more visible
and more viable.

Part of the loosening of the past has resulted from the psychological work and, of course, the metaphysical and spiritual work you have been doing. Beyond
that, the controlling hold of the past has now let go. Yes, there are those who will insist that the past is still a noose around their necks or a
binding about their hands and feet. Many will insist that they are still prisoners of their past. However, more and more it is going to become apparent
that it is they, not the mysterious wardens of the past, who are keeping themselves in prison. As they grip the bars of the past, demanding to be free,
their tight grip holding the door shut will be the only grip that is there.

Part of the increasing influence of the future has resulted from the same psychological work and, even more so, from your metaphysical and spiritual work.
It is not long into the realization that you create your own reality (and that you can become more and more conscious of that creation) that you begin
to suspect the powerful role of the future. In time, you come to discover the incredible potency of the future.

The idea that you are an expression of who you are becoming, far more than you are a reflection of who you have been, is becoming truer and truer. You
do not have to be at sufferance of your past. You can joyously embrace the future and see what it holds for you. More, you can actively and eagerly
create new futures -- never-before-dreamt, never-before-imagined futures -- that can generate transforming and transcending growth, change, and evolution,
and that open to a bounty of abundance filled with untold treasures of happiness and success. We do not speak in hyperbole here. We speak more literally
than you know; more literally than you will let yourselves believe just yet.

Lessons? Learn to release your own past. Do not just continue to process it and process it over and over. Learn to release it. End your imprisonment to
the messages, patterns, thoughts, feelings, and events that are your past. If you want to keep the same players (continue to relate to the same people),
then find new roles for them and for you to play. You can still spend time with your family and with past friends, but find a new way to relate. For
example, let your mother be a woman, and let your siblings be men and women. Let them be contemporary people with a future rather than remembered people
with a past.

Lessons? Learn to work with the future. Learn to retrieve power from futures that may be dark and destructive, and learn how to use that power to create
light and constructive futures that perhaps do not even exist right now. Learn how to lace the future with possible and actual dreams, desires and
expectations. Learn to throw futures that will generate a mysterious, but no less effective, resonance that will produce amazing success. Space and
time do not allow us to elaborate on the precise techniques of actually working with the future. However, let yourself ponder and savor the possibility.
Let yourself consider: There are techniques that you have not yet begun to learn. There is so much out there that you do not yet understand and that
does not yet make sense to you. But you do not always have to be someone who already knows. You can be someone who is about to know. You can be someone
who is about to discover something new and exciting.

Pondering, savoring, and patiently sitting with these ideas will be a beginning. You will have begun working with the future.

Secondly, the ever-present evolution of human consciousness has, itself, changed. Succinctly, you are in the midst of an evolution that involves the very
human species itself. This very physical evolution is more critical than when you developed your prehensile thumb, more important than when you first
stood erect. It is big. Very big. Bigger than you yet know.

Now there are many who are picking up hints and clues of this evolution of species about which we speak. However, they are having problems translating
what they sense into a workable and thus accurate understanding of what is really happening. Aware of this species evolution, they are thinking in
linear terms. They are applying a chauvinistic or consensus logic and reason to what they sense. Thus you hear many talking about cranial enlargement
(harkening back to the science fiction of the 1950s), about increased or decreased chromosomes, about DNA with any number of strands other than the
double-helixed two that are already present, and about the next generation of human beings with superhuman academic capacities. Perhaps they mean well,
but these are not the real changes that are afoot.

Your brain is a hologram created by your mind -- created by a more real self. The hologram of brain, in turn, generates the hologram of body and the hologram
of three dimensions of space placed in one dimension of time. Your 3-D world is an illusion -- a very powerful and sometimes very painful illusion,
an illusion that from inside it seems more real than anything. But it is still an illusion. You know this.

As a species, you have been calibrated and have calibrated yourself to experience reality in a certain way -- in the consensus way. Part of that calibration
is to see the past and not the future. Part of it is to see through chauvinistic eyes and listen with chauvinistic ears, regardless of your gender.
We are not meaning eyes and ears that think women are less than, though chauvinism still includes such archaic concepts for some. We mean the eyes
and ears that can only think in either/or terms, or that think only in linear logic and reason, or that think in terms of singular supremacy rather
than in ideas of cooperation.

Part of this calibration is to think that everything has to be fixed before it can change, rather than realizing that the lessons of the future -- of the
millennium that is dawning -- are not about fixing. They are about changing.

In 1979 we said that the future is not about cleaning the old floor. It is about creating a new floor. You are moving into a new world. No, not a new order
to an old world. You are moving into a new world.

To succeed, the human species must evolve the hologram of the brain. Simply put: You cannot watch color television on a black and white set. You cannot
even see the dream and the new world with the current cranial hologram. You need a new hologram, and your mind is in the midst of evolving one.

Lessons? The old ways of growing and changing simply do not work. Those ways are too dependent upon discipline, admonishment, and criticism. Far too many
are dependent upon harsh punishment. Though such techniques (except punishment which we have never condoned) have their place and their effectiveness,
they have reached the point of diminishing returns. It is not about more discipline, more admonishment, or harsher criticism. It is about more love
and more healing. It is about receiving. To survive into the future, it is important to do these new things more elegantly and with greater excellence.
More love. More healing. More receiving.

Lessons? Be willing to stretch into the unknown -- into what you do not understand and into what does not make sense. More of who you really are is made
up of what you do not understand about yourself than is made up of what you do understand. Even though you do not know where you are going, be willing
to go there anyway. These are lessons of courage, of perseverance, of conviction. These are lessons of character, human character and spiritual character.

Each of you has ideals, goals that you reach for but will never fully realize. Even so, you are a better person for the stretch. And with those ideals
you have certain principles -- rules that you align with in such a way as to lead you to, or to bring you closer, to those ideals. For example, you
may have an ideal of seeking perfect love. Though you will never reach it, you are a better person for having tried. Along with this ideal, you may
have a principle or two about honesty and fidelity.

Against this backdrop, character is the consistency and the frequency with which you apply or adhere to your principles. Many people claim the principles
of honesty and fidelity. But if a person only applies or adheres to those principles when it is easy or convenient, they lack character. No matter
how lofty their ideals nor how honorable their principles, if they only apply and adhere to them when it serves their self-interest, they lack character.
Vise versa, obviously.

The lessons are also about character. Can you adhere to your ideals and principles? Are you willing and able to stand tall? Are you willing to take a stand
upon your ideals and upon your principles? Are you willing to take a stand upon your beliefs and upon the highest truth? The current highest truth:
You create your own reality by causing and by allowing, and you can become more and more conscious of your creation.

Are you willing and able to take a stand, to stand upon your beliefs and your highest truth? Are you willing to reach even higher? Are you willing to reach
for a higher highest truth? Are you willing to reach for more liberating and illuminating beliefs?

This is the mark and measure. These are some of the issues and lessons. As you can respond (be responsible) and as you can receive (be receptive), you
will make your maps, and you will dream and then weave your dreams. You will create visions and make realities like have never been made before.

You will found a new spirituality -- not find something that is already there, but rather be a founder of a new spirituality. And with it you forge a new
world. Yes, you will.

Once, so long ago, as a new kind of human -- as a human being -- you stood up and discovered a world all around you. You discovered a world that was there
all along. Now it is time to stand up a second time -- to stand up as a new kind of human being - as a god-being -- and to discover a new world all
around you. However, this time it is to discover a world that has never been.

A Grouping of Questions with Jach's Replies from the Online Conferences

During the Evenings with Jach and the "Twenty Questions" Conferences as well, so many have commented about Jach's wisdom and insight. He connects current
events to Lazaris' teachings in a way that helps bring new and refreshing outlooks to so many issues in our world. Because of the overwhelming feedback
we have received, we have grouped together some of Jach's answers by topic. Enjoy!

Hope

Q: Can you provide your thoughts on the Tucson event this past weekend? It has multiple meanings and metaphors, but I'd like your reflections.

JACH:

Well, at first I was shocked and appalled, and then I turned to understanding, or to working with understanding, and I have come around to once again being
appalled. At first my shock had to do with such an act of violence happening at a shopping center in a place such as Tucson. (I have been there ...
once [s].) Then I wondered if this were political. I wondered if this guy, with mental problems and all, had hooked into the segment of the Tea Party
that advocates "take them down" or having someone "in our targets." I now am hoping that this guy had no knowledge of that kind of stuff and that he
was just part of some obscure lunatic fringe. I am hoping that this was not at all political, not at all. Even so, I am still appalled: This is America.
These sorts of things don't happen in America.

The polarization that Lazaris has mentioned stands out here. The lack of imagination and the lack of dreaming leads to instant polarization, Lazaris pointed
out in November. We are seeing that now. I do not speak of this with any political bias (and personally, I surely do have a lot of political bias [s]),
but I leave that aside now). The issue of an imagination that is lacking and perhaps even dying, and of a lack of dreams, crosses all political terrain.
And I think it has a strong connection with a growing sense that can be called a lack of future. I think so many people just do not have a sense that
there is a future or the future they see is abysmal. Some tie that to politics: The left says the right is leading us into devastation and the right
says the left is leading us off a cliff into oblivion, but such rhetoric is symptomatic of a larger issue, it seems to me. People, left, right, or
in any other direction, seem to lack a sense of the future or of a positive future. And I think this is connected to the Tucson shooting. This guy
having no sense of the future tried to what? Kill the future of a governmental official? A judge? Innocent people? Why? He had no future. Perhaps he
was showing them that they have no future. He created that for 6 people and he significantly altered his future and the future of all who attended
(to varying degrees).

We need hope. We need the expectations and anticipations; we need the presence of soul and spirit that are hope. And out of that sense of hope, new dreams
can be born. And out of that sense of hope, new futures can form. Initiation is not enough. We need to fuel what we set in motion with hope. I think
back to 2000, the Year of Dominion, and to 2001, the Year of Mystery. The terrain of dominion is made fertile by the insemination of mystery. The womb
of dominion needs the insemination of mystery to give birth to creation and manifestation. Well, this decade began with 2010: The Year of Initiation.
But setting things in motion, causing them to be, is not enough. We need to fuel the initiations with hope so that which is set in motion, rich with
hope, can emerge as enchantment. I see a pattern here. And I see Tucson calling us to that pattern. Yesterday Gabby (I think it's beautiful that people
are calling her Gabby) opened her eyes. In the midst of this horror: hope. What a gift she gives us all.

Then there are President Obama's comments. Oh man, can we come together? Perhaps we magicians can. He spoke of the tendency to blame and point fingers.
He spoke of how we want to know why. We want reasons for the unreasonable. He spoke of how we have choice in how we react and how we respond. I doubt
that some such as Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck will quiet their rhetoric, but they are entertainers: They have an audience to please and they are putting
on a show. But for us who are magicians, for us who are mapmakers, I think we can come together. Not in form -- I am not talking about coming together
in form. But we can come together in function. I am appalled that it happened, and I am determined to find the hope and to augment and embellish the
hope in this tragedy.

Q: When Lazaris talks to us about emptying ourselves of all Hope that has been, he also says "not hopeless, but devoid of Hope. I get it when I am in meditation and can do it, but wonder how you would cognitively describe it?

JACH:

Lazaris talks of the Paradox of Hope. Actually, he talked of it years and years ago in the 1990s, I believe, when he first talked of hope. [s] The paradox,
as you point out is that you need to let go of all hope, all of it, in order to receive hope. That is, you need to release it all in order to receive
its bounty ... Ah, the bounty of hope and then the magic of hope. In a sense, we have to make room for it by discarding all the hope we have. Lazaris
also points out: Not hopeless, but devoid of hope. I love the next part.

You say you get it in meditation, but outside of meditation, how do you describe it? I am not sure you can cognitively describe it in the conscious state.
It is a paradox: to have it you have to discard it. You have to be willing to be without hope, not hopeless but without hope. And hope is a transcendent
energy. We cannot fully describe or fully comprehend hope, and I suspect we cannot cognitively describe it, either.

So with that as a backdrop, an analogy: I can take off my shoes and be shoeless. But there are those who have lost their shoes or who never had them. So
maybe when I discard my shoes, I am devoid of shoes, but not shoeless. I will get my shoes back shortly, but for those who truly lost their shoes?
Okay, okay, it's not a perfect analogy. Not perfect? Hey, it's not even a good analogy, but maybe it works.

A hopeless person has no hope, but they do not or cannot take responsibility for its absence. To relinquish hope, to be without hope but not hopeless,
means that I can hope, and I can have it again. I am responsible for relinquishing it.

One step more: To be without hope, but not hopeless, is possible because "hopeless" is not a quantity, it is a state of mind and a state of being. It is
a quality. When I relinquish my hope, I still maintain a hopeful state of mind and state of being. I just don't hold on to any hope at the moment.
I hope [s] that answers your question in some way.

Q: It is interesting to me that Hope and Trust are linked at that 4th position of the upper Tier of Emotions. Can you please speak to how you see those two energies working together.

JACH:

I think trust is an anchor for hope. Lazaris points out that hope can be a miraculous gift, and hope can also be cruel. I was surprised by that comment,
so I thought about it more. Yes. Hope can be false hope. It can be a delusion. It can be clinging to something that isn't or that will never be. We
can hope and hope and hope and do nothing or little else, and our reality and our world can be devastated and devastating, but we just sit there hoping
and hoping and hoping. ...
Hope can be bitterly cruel and ugly. The abused wife or husband comes back one more time hoping things will be different this time. The broken-hearted
who clings to the hope that he or she will come back ... waiting for the ghostly lover, hoping. I hadn't put that together. I had only thought of hope
as this wondrous, magical thing -- which it can be.

So what makes a true hope, a luminous hope, where otherwise a false or cruel hope might be? I think trust is a key. It is not the only key, I think, but
I think it is an important one. And when I say that, I don't mean that we need to trust what we are hoping for. (Maybe that's true, too, but that's
not what I am thinking about now.) I think we need to be trustworthy. I think we need to be someone that others can trust -- worthy of another's trust.
And I think we have to be one who is willing to trust others, others who have demonstrated that they are worth trusting. So I think we need to be conscious
of our rapport with trust, and that we need a working relationship (a relationship that works) with trust. When we are trustworthy and we trust, I
think we can release our hold on hopes that could be cruel. I think we can release false hope, delusionary hopes, and hopes that are excuses to hold
on to stuff we need to let go of. So such hopes are going to be there. Our negative ego can present them. Others can encourage them. But if we are
trustworthy and if we trust, I think we can sort and sift through those potentially cruel hopes.

That's one aspect. Another aspect is that it takes strength to hope, to genuinely hope. Lazaris has pointed out that the consensus reality is distrustful
of hope. Hope is seen as an emotion of last resort. When all else has failed, the only thing left is hope. That's what's sadly true for many people
in the world. When someone says, "Well, we are hopeful. All we can do is hope," they are describing a really bad situation. To overcome the resonance
of the consensus reality and to truly lean upon and rest upon hope ... that takes strength, a trusting and enduring strength, it seems to me.

The word, hope, is an easy one to say. We hope a lot ... We hope people are happy, we hope they are satisfied, we hope they drop dead [s], we hope for
positive things and we hope for negative things for almost everyone. The word slips out of our mouths easily. But can we truly hope? Do we work with
hope, really? I know I have a great deal to learn about working with hope. I say it a lot. I value hope. I appreciate it. I get inspired by it. I get
goose bumps, and I get all teary-eyed when I think of its beauty and its wonder (and its power and potency). But I know very little of hope, of the
real deal of the genuinely powerful, magical thing that is hope. ... Primordial Hope, Luminous Hope, Human Hope ... the Glamoury and the Majesty of
Hope. I think trust is a part of it. AND I think that the two (trust and hope) may be two very different things, but that they share the same resonance.
They function at the same frequency there in the middle or the 4th position -- in that upper tier. They are the most determined, and they are essential
for happiness. As alike or as different as they may be, they are key and essential for love.

Q: I am wondering, with all the energies of hope, if there is anything we can do on a daily basis to boost hope in ourselves and keep our resonance high and clear.

JACH:

Oh, there are so many things we can do. [s] I cannot remember the title of the recording, but it's on Hope and Joy, and it was an Evening recording from
a few years back. If you go to the shopping cart and do a search, the exact title will come up. [Editor's Note: The recording is "The Incredible Magic
of Hope and Joy."] On that recording Lazaris suggests several techniques. One is an Elixir of Hope. It's very nice. Another is a technique to work
with Seven Days of Hope. It is stunningly amazing. For seven days, you focus on hope. You focus on listening to your Soul and Spirit. You focus on
expressing your expectations and observing your anticipations. Lazaris points out that we use the words "expectation" and "anticipation" interchangeably,
and that's okay. But they are different. Anticipation is our actions or behaviors in advance of an event. Our expectations are our feelings and images
after an event. Anticipation is masculine energy, and expectation is feminine energy.

Even though we use the words interchangeably, it is helpful to track our anticipations. What do we do and how do we behave in advance of an expected event?
And it is valuable to track our expectations, the feelings and images we hold after the event. We can work to lift each. We can work to allow each
to be alive with light. They can be luminous. When our anticipations and our expectations are luminous, we are alive with hope. Our hope is luminous.
We can flow that light -- that luminous hope -- into our reality and into the world.

During one of the recent two One-Day events, we worked with Igniting the Embers of Hope. It is beautiful. It is powerful. In the other, we take those embers
of hope to the Weaver Woman and together weave a Tapestry of Hope. Those two meditations are luminous. And I truly know the world is and that it can
be different because of the work that we can do with luminous hope. We can also work with a Journal of Hope. Write down your hopes: desires, dreams,
visions (passive hope) and your ideas, plans, and projects (active hope). Put them together as magic papers ... a 3" square, one for each hope. Fold
those papers with intention and attention. Focus. [s] Then put them in a "Hope Chest," a box or a bowl, and let them incubate. You can also work with
a crystal that is a Purveyor of Hope or one that has an Incubation Chamber. Or, you can work with a crystal that you choose and from which you get
permission, and that crystal can be your Hope Amplifier. Work with the Hope Chest or Hope Amplifier, a box (or bowl), or a crystal. Place the slips
of paper under or around the crystal. You can infuse your day with hope. And, perhaps, what is even more exciting and rewarding, you can infuse the
world with hope.

But watch out! [s] Hope is the initiator. It will set things in motion and cause things to be. It is immensely powerful. Immensely. And it is beautiful
in the hands of a magician. So have fun with hope. Okay? Thanks for asking. [s] You have sparked some ideas in me. I hope I have sparked some in you.

One has heard so often in the world out there about fears of failure. It was presented perhaps a decade ago as this revelatory understanding that there
is fear of success.

And it became something of a catch phrase, something of a buzzword. "Your problem is you have fear of success." And it's true for many people. Ironically,
for many people the fear of success is much bigger than the fear of failure. You have learned through conditioning, from the time you were a very small
infant, to cope with and deal with failure. Everyone has faced failure many times. You can and do cope with failure. Likewise, you have come to face
success as well. However, the "conditioning" to deal with and cope with success is never as thorough or as frequent. Therefore, truly so, success is
more frightening than failure is.

However, the FEAR OF SUCCESS became such a catch phrase, such a witty, wise thing to say, that no one stopped to look at ... "Well, what does that really
mean?"

The psychological concepts come forth in terms of contractual arrangements with parents. They are contracts like: "I will follow your footsteps, and I
will never be better than my dad." Or they come in living up to the parental expectations, the slot that you were put in, your place in the family
constellation. Lots of psychological concepts were presented, and again, they were very correct.

But here is what to look at now in this monumental decade, the 1990s. One could elaborate for hours on each of these dynamics, but briefly the mechanisms
are as follows:

ONE First of all, success is scary because of the weight one gives it, the weight one places on what it means.

If you hold it inside that success means you're smarter, craftier, wiser or "slicker" (in the negative meaning of the word) than others, then success is
very frightening.

If you hold that because you're successful you are therefore superior to or "better-than" other people -- that you are "entitled," that you are "endowed,"
that you have a right to be arrogant -- then success is scary.

When you hold that success validates you as being good and whole and right and true -- or when you hold that success exonerates you from things that would
make a less successful person have to work with forgiveness (which truly does relieve the past) -- then success is scary.

If you attach these kinds of meanings, you weigh down success. Here's success, this thing, this essence. If you hang onto it all these weights of better-than,
smarter, craftier, you make it far too heavy. And if you make it so very heavy, it begins to wobble, and indeed it can collapse. Therefore, success
is scary because of the weight one gives it.

Further, it's scary because it never does any of those things. It never does make you smarter. It never does vindicate or validate you. It never does exonerate
you or make you a perfect person. And if you hold that it will, success becomes very frightening.

So the first thing that makes success really scary is the weight that is attached to it.

TWO What's also frightening about it is that success is part of a creative dynamic. Whenever something is created, there's always something else that is
destroyed. This is why Rollo May referred to the courage to create -- because there is always that conflict. As you create something, something else
is destroyed. If nothing else, ignorance is destroyed. And this very dynamic of creativity also applies to success. It'll often be followed with guilt
-- feeling guilty that you've done something, that you've changed the order of things, that you've stepped outside the normal range.

There may even be a feeling of doubt: "Have I done the right thing? What if I'm not heading in the right direction?" It's so very strange. We hear so many
people who are succeeding wonderfully well, but their fear is: "Yes, but what if this wasn't what I was meant to do? What if I was supposed to become
something else? Suppose my destiny was something else? What if I've somehow managed to land in this arena of success, and I'm flying along like crazy,
and one day will wake up and realize I've missed the boat?" Doubt and the concern around that -- that's part of the creative function. Therefore, we
would suggest here it's frightening.

THREE Success is also frightening because success carries chaos with it. We call success Light Chaos. But in your world, you're geared and conditioned
to have no chaos at all. It's an outgrowth of adolescence where life is so absolutely, unbelievably chaotic that you try to stabilize it with the absolutes
-- the always's and never's, the black's and white's -- of adolescence.

And you have come out of that period with the belief that, above all, you should not have chaos. Above all, have things orderly and smooth. And success
has chaos. It brings chaos.

Success therefore erupts and brings forth what we call the "root emotion." Whenever success occurs, it brings out the dark side of self, turmoil and trouble.
Therefore, of course, whenever chaos exists, chaos brings the eruption, or at least the disturbance, of the dark side. It brings out the Dark Law --
that basic, unbelievable truth that you hold onto. "I can never be happy," or "I will never be successful," or the various negative beliefs that you've
now made into a Law.

Chaos brings questioning and the issue of reviewing self. All chaos does, whatever kind, be it physical or emotional, mental or spiritual. It also brings
up issues from the past, issues from childhood.

So there are a number of reasons success is scary, in and of itself. And if you can understand that it is scary, and you can anticipate certain of these
fears, then we would suggest you can resolve them.

FOUR One of the biggest reasons success is scary is because of what we call a faulty foundation. When you build a house, you lay a foundation and do all
the things that are proper according to code. Then upon it you plan to erect a two-story residence.

Well, if in the midst of waiting for that foundation to dry, you decide, "I think I'll make better use of the space and build a ten-story skyscraper on
top," the foundation won't hold.

What we mean by the foundation is the motivation. Why do I want to be successful in the first place? If the reason is not solid, if that's not the proper
foundation -- solid or not -- then it's going to lean, to tip, to crack and crumble. And success, like a house of cards, will come down.

And what we mean by faulty foundation is: If you're trying to be successful in order to punish someone, that's a faulty foundation.

"I'll show them. All those kids in school who said I'd never amount to anything -- I'll show them, and I'll go back and rub their noses in it." Or, "I'll
show my father," or "I'll show my mother." Or, "I'll get 'em and make them suffer. I'm going to be successful and then walk all over them."

Those are faulty motivations. We didn't say they're wrong or bad. We're not judging them. We're simply saying that they can't weather the weight of success.

If you're doing it to vindicate yourself, it's a faulty foundation. Vindication is a fascinating thing, because your consensus reality tells you to do
things to vindicate yourself. It never works. Vindication has never worked. "I made a mistake, so now I'm going to do it right, and that will somehow
expunge the record." No, forgiveness works, vindication doesn't.

Therefore, if you're trying to succeed to vindicate yourself -- "I really screwed up in my 20s and now in my 40s I'm going to be a triumphant success and
that will expunge the record" -- it won't work. It never does. Even if you have a magnificent success, it never erases anything. Forgiveness can, but
not vindication.

If you're doing something as a way to win approval, to win praise, to win the acceptance of another, it's a faulty motivation. Again, we're not saying
it's a bad motivation. We're saying that it's too weak. It can support "this much" success for approval, for praise, but it can't support "this much
more". When you pile this much on, OK. But more than that, and it starts to wobble and crumble. Indeed you can sabotage yourself and end up punishing
yourself simply because the foundation, the motivation, the reason you want to be successful is faulty.

So from the weight of what you attach to the success, to the very foundation underneath it -- from the creative process to the chaotic process in between
-- those are four very specific reasons (and there are others) why it's scary.

Now, if you can understand that for yourself, then you can change your motivations. You can rebuild and restructure a whole different foundation for being
successful. You can take the weight off and realize that it's not going to make you smarter or better-than or give you license. You can be prepared
for the chaos, and when it comes, you can work with it. You can handle it. You don't have to freak out and run away. You can be prepared for the guilt
and doubt that's going to arise in the very dynamic of creativity.

So now when success comes, it doesn't have to be scary. And what fear is remaining, you can right. You can have the confidence to know that you can overcome
it.

Now, certainly, there are a certain number of approaches and techniques one works with, but that, in a nutshell is what we're talking about when one looks
at the fear of success.

Similarly, we have talked about fear itself. Fear is scary, yes? Everyone knows that, but no one really stops to look at why.

Certainly indeed fear is scary because it threatens not so much death, although the threat of destruction is a part of it. Mainly it's scary because it
threatens impotence. An example: Perhaps you're not so much afraid of dying as you are afraid of pain in the process of dying. And even scarier is
feeling that pain and not dying, and therefore having to live the rest of your life with that. That impotence -- that's the threat that fear offers.

But more than that, fear threatens the withdrawal of affection. Fear threatens the exposure of the Dark side of self. Fear also threatens the exposure
of the Light Side of self, the positive qualities that people have that they've similarly learned to tuck away. It's what psychologists call the Shadow,
the Dark Shadow and the Light Shadow. Fear threatens to expose them both.

Fear threatens also to produce or generate destruction. It threatens that you'll be totally obliterated, totally demolished - and short of it that, you
won't have the gift of death, but that you'll have to survive.

And fear blackmails. Fear says, "If you don't watch out, we're going to cause you to have love withdrawn, and you're going to end up all alone and lonely."
Or, "We're going to expose you, and everyone will see your ambition, and your aggressiveness, and the pride and hostility, and all those ugly things
you thought you had hidden so well." Or, worse yet, "We're going to expose you, and they're going to see your power and strength and talent and all
the beautiful parts that you've hidden away."

It's blackmail, just as if someone said, "We're going to expose something, so pay up." Well, that's what fear does. It says, "If you don't cooperate with
us, if you don't be afraid of us, then we're going to do something, and you'd better pay up."

And as with any blackmail, if you expose it, you're safe. Why would love be withdrawn? What would happen to intimacy, the caring? What is that Dark Side
that you're so afraid of, or the Light Side that you're even more afraid of? What could be the potential physical damage or maiming or impotence that
would be there? What is the loneliness that would be there? What is the loneliness that it really threatens?

And as you can expose that to yourself, then you reduce -not eliminate, but reduce -- why fear is so scary. Once you reduce it, then fear can once again
become that instinct that is a natural part of you -- the survival instinct of fight, flight, reproduce and feed yourself. It can become the teacher.

Fear was your first teacher, the very first one you ever had. The fear of mother withdrawing the nursing, the love, the nurturing. It is a great teacher.
It is a motivator, certainly so. If necessity is the mother of invention, then too often the father of invention is fear. It can be a great motivator,
and we would suggest it also haunts and looms. But it can also warn you, cause you to remind yourself and to keep within the boundaries of your own
self and your own direction. Fear can be the boundary to let you know when you're getting off course.

So it can be very positive if you can take away the blackmail. And in that scope, once you remove the blackmail then you can learn to work with fear, and
it doesn't have to be so frightening. It doesn't have to be the enemy. In fact, it can become a strange, but nonetheless very valuable, ally. And in
this time, it is so important that people really not just say the words and let them pass on by, not just pay lip service to "fear of success," but
that they also dig into it and really resolve these issues.

In this decade the greatest of fears and the greatest of joys will be there for humanity -- in an individual and a collective way -- to embrace. As you
learn to handle both your right of success and the mask or the shadows of fear, then you can more readily choose the greatest joys and greatest of
dreams, and work with and use those fears to implement them.

During the Online Conference (March 21, 2012) the following question was asked:

"With the ongoing political threats to women's autonomy from the right, and the death of the young black boy in Florida, Trayvon Martin, it seems like we are revisiting issues we thought/hoped were more resolved. Any ideas on how to be an understanding person with these painful, angering issues?"

Several people requested that this question and my reply be made available. There will be a transcript of the entire Online Conference in the Forum Library,
but I decided to also post this reply in the Forum and on the Lazaris ~ Concept: Synergy page of Facebook.

It's an amazing time, isn't it? Shocking, in many ways. I cannot remember when, but many months ago Lazaris said that the male chauvinism of the past,
which seemed to be on the decline and that seemed to many to be a non-issue, was returning with "a vengeance." He spoke of the radical extremists in
the Muslim world. He spoke of the castration and mutilation of women in Africa. He spoke of the Taliban and their impact in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
He didn't speak of the rise of chauvinism in the West, but it seems to be here. Racism and bigotry that were "supposed to be resolved" with the Civil
Rights Movement of the 1960s, also seem to be increasing. The shooting death of Trayvon Martin speaks to that in a visible way.

How to understand it: What occurs to me is that people, so many people, are dealing with the lower rung of the Tiers of Emotion. So many people are caught
up and lost in fear and in hurt. Jealousy seems rampant, as does blame. Unresolved, these constricting emotions, these denied emotions, deteriorate
and rot, becoming rage. Rage dips into loneliness and despair. The result: people feel a growing and terrifying sense of alienation. People feel they
just don't belong. They don't belong in a world that is "moving too fast."

Alienation, lack of belonging, rage, loneliness, and despair cause people to act out. Some act out with anger. Their anger covers the fear and hurt. Blame
covers rage and despair. With alienation, a sense of not belonging, and a world that seems foreign, violence unfolds. Racism, bigotry, and discrimination
seem to be a part of that. I think the rise of violent chauvinism is also a major part of that. The term, War on Women, is a political term, a catch
phrase. But beyond the rhetoric, there are increased attempts to control women with all the legislation about abortion, contraception, and women's
rights, I think it is a function of that alienation and lack of belonging. It leads to a sense of powerlessness. The chauvinism, acting out against
women, seems to be a response: an attempt to feel powerful, to be in control, to have impact, to be a part and in a way to "belong." It seems an attempt
through control to feel "in control" of a world that has gotten "out of control."

So to understand: It's about comprehending and interpreting along with discerning and assessing. Beyond that, understanding looks to inference -- the emotions
that are unspoken and that are "between" the events themselves. Understanding also is about appreciating. That's the hard part here, I think. But I
think we can appreciate the pain that the Republican legislators in various states are feeling, and the pain that those who support such oppressive
legislation are feeling. I think we can appreciate the sense of alienation and the lack of belonging that I think is behind this new level of chauvinism.

The last step of understanding is valuation. Not to value the violence toward women or the violence to minorities, but to value the desire to belong, the
desire to be a part of the world, to be connected, to be included. Under all that, is there a desire, a longing, to be loved? I suspect there is. I
can appreciate and value that. I can work my magic to flow love and healing to the perpetrators. I can work my magic to awaken a sense of belonging
in those who feel so foreign, so alien, so alienated in this rapidly changing world.

I also think there is shame involved here. I am not sure how it plays exactly. But I think the attempts to corral women (once again) and the acts of violence,
are attempts to dump the "sub-human" feelings of powerlessness on to others. Shame: "I feel powerless. If I can make women feel powerless, perhaps
I can alleviate my feeling of powerlessness. If I can make others afraid, perhaps my fears will be lessened." Again, I am not clear on this, but as
I have been responding to your question, the idea of shame keeps coming up. It's a puzzle piece here, I think, and I don't know where it fits. Anyway,
these are my thoughts to your question about how to understand.

I hadn't thought about understanding these situations until this question came up.

All right. All right. Once again it is a pleasure and a joy to have this chance to work with you. The words … pleasure, joy …
seem too small to hold and too short to reach the fullness of the pleasure and joy it always is to explore and to work with you.

This day we talk of Coming Home, two words that also seem too small and too short. The very words bring tingles and goose bumps to some and bring
tears to the eyes of others. They stir the hearts and minds of all of you. These words, at first blush seeming so simple and so mundane, stir the mysterious
and the mystical; they stir the beautiful and the wondrous. These words touch something so deep in you that you cannot seem to touch back – not yet.
Coming Home.

Coming Home catches your breath and creates a poignant pause that suspends the moment, making it eternal – making it enchanted, treasured, precious, and
special. In that suspended and eternal moment, your spiritual yearning can be made new; your spiritual quest can be made more whole. Both yearning
and quest can become rich, vibrant, and vital. Coming Home … in that moment, you can become transcendent. You can transcend.

Somewhere amid the journey, somewhere within the dance, you can discover and unfold what Coming Home is for you. Perhaps you
will begin finding what it means in a symbolic way. These two words can be as a hieroglyph or icon. Meditatively, pondering the words themselves, you
can "double-click" to open a window of awareness and understanding of you and your spirituality.

Maybe what you seek can be found in the metaphoric meaning and significance found embedded in the words and within the idea. You can find the meaning and
significance held in the lifetimes – past, parallel, and future – that make up your fabric of being. Against the backdrop of such lifetimes, you may
well find an already-existing realness.

Beyond the embedded meaning in metaphor, some will find the reverie of Coming Home in the metaphorical meaning and significance you give – that you consciously
create and manifest by choice in the words and in the idea of Coming Home. Beyond the existing realness, you can consciously give realness.

The richer value of Coming Home lies beyond awareness and understanding; it lies beyond meaning and significance. Please do not misunderstand us: There
is value in awareness and understanding, obviously so. Likewise, there is value in meaning and significance.

And then there is a different kind of value. Whereas most value is found in the thing, there is also value that isbeyond the thing. There
is also value – a unique and phenomenally powerful value – that lies beyond. It is a value beyond content and context – beyond form. It is a value
that can be found in the function – in the engagement, in the embrace, and in the activity of Coming Home.

Somewhere amid the journey and within the magical dance, you can awaken:

Powers, strengths, and talents both old and new with a raw and sheer force that you can harness with design and direction to more fully achieve and fulfill
your destiny.

Mystical choice that can be a keystone to all creation and manifestation, a cornerstone to all success, happiness, and joy, and that is seminal to all
change. Mystical choice that surpasses and supersedes itself to engage the Truer Self and to re-direct the entropy of the evolution of chance and necessity
to the spirituality of the evolution of choice and reflection.

Within the liminal, naked without the encumbrance and entanglements of the Ego-I, you can expose yourself to your vulnerability. You can expose yourself
to your weaknesses so that you can change and heal them and so that you can become strong. You can also expose yourself to your strengths, powers,
and talents so that you can grow and evolve, becoming freer and more loving. You can become wise.

Miracles that allow you to reach beyond fixing it and curing it to changing and healing it with love.

Motivation: A reason to begin again. A reason to cast off your masks and disguises, to set down your shields and weaponry; a reason to take a stand and
to stand tall upon your commitment with visions and dreams. A reason to become the giant that you truly are.

The journey that ended was a journey of Going Home. It was a journey of separation and of forgetting. In your forgetting, it
became a journey of fear and of pain: It became a journey of violence, pain, crises, and loneliness. It became a journey of fear and sorrow. As you
woke up, that journey of Going Home became a journey of struggle and suffering – "no pain, no gain."

Then it became a journey beyond struggle; it became a journey of love, light, laughter, and celebration. Many called you a fool; some still do. Your journey
sought beauty, love, enchantment, and solitude. Yet the journey was still one of Going Home.

Now everything is different, and you have come to the end of that long journey. You are no longer Going Home. You are now Coming Home.

Coming Home. It is like a grand attractor that compels more than it propels, that draws more than it drives. It calls you, and you can respond. It changes
every part of you, and you change if you will respond.

In the depth of Coming Home you can discover so many wonders. You can discover the luminous, the numinous, the liminal, and the
responsible.

The luminous is that "something more" that defies description. It is the Light within you. You have felt it; you have been astounded
and amazed by it. It is the illumination that is the endless mystery of you. In the depth of Coming Home, you can be filled and overflowing with light
and love. You can be filled and overflowing with the light and love of God/Goddess/All That Is and of the Goddess, and you can be changed by that very
light and love. You can be changed forever.

The numinous … another word for the divinity in you. Though it is premature to say that you are God or Goddess, it is
also eternally true that within you there is a "piece of God and of Goddess." Within you lies a divinity. We would suggest that it seems solidly sleeping,
stirring and rustling, or waking up more and more, but within you there is a divinity. Deep within the dance called Coming Home, you can be filled
and outpouring with the ineffable and the divine beauty and wonder of God/Goddess/All That Is and of the Goddess. You can be radiant with beauty and
wonder that can instantly and spontaneously engage and embrace you and as instantly and spontaneously change and grow you.

The liminal is the threshold; it is the gateway to the energy of "between". It is that mysterious between space-time; it is that
mystical pause. The liminal is a state between transmutation, transformation, and transcendence. Additionally, the liminal is a state of unity between
duality and oneness. We suggest that it is a state of unity and equity without hierarchy and a state of sacred vulnerability. It is holy.

The liminal is also a state of being where you, separate from the Ego-I, can discover the Self-I. There in that mysterious between and in that mystical
pause, you can encounter the Self-I who is a blending of the masculine and feminine in you, who is the blended woman and man that you are, regardless
of your gender. You can engage the Self-I who knows the equity of the "Faces of Self" with integrity and character and who is the mature self with
an elegant rapport with the more real you.

Within the liminal, naked without the encumbrance and entanglements of the Ego-I, you can expose yourself to your vulnerability. You can expose yourself
to your weaknesses so that you can change and heal them and so that you can become strong. You can also expose yourself to your strengths, powers,
and talents so that you can grow and evolve, becoming freer and more loving. You can become wise.

The responsible means more than the obvious ability to respond. It means "to return to your promise." Within the dance of Coming
Home … within its depths … you can find the courage and the confidence to return to the promise you made to God and to the Goddess. So
long ago when, by your free will, you separated from God/Goddess/All That Is in pursuit of who you were, you promised that you would return. You promised
that you would return to God and that you would return to Goddess.

You separated, we would suggest, and began your journey Going Home. Now you have rounded the bend, and you are upon the journey Coming Home. It is time
to return to that promise made "so long ago." It is time to return to your promise of Coming Home.

The beauty: You are waking up now. However conscious or yet to become conscious you are, you are on your way Home. Seek the luminous, numinous, liminal,
and the responsible in you, and you will find your way. We love you.